


Chess Across the Galaxy

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Brains Are Sexy, Extra Treat, F/M, Gen, Handcuffs, Post-Episode: s04e09 Rebel Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12783054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Thrawn has his favorite opponent in his custody at last, and he has an offer for her.





	Chess Across the Galaxy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenofspade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/gifts).



> Takes a few cues from Thrawn's new EU backstory.

Pryce scrambled the message and pressed 'Send.' Tarkin disliked her. Many of her colleagues in the higher ranks of the Empire did, but they liked one another no more than that, and all of them sought out the smallest edge to use against the others. Thus far, Grand Admiral Thrawn had been all but impossible to crack. Defeats that would have devastated a different military leader were not merely inconveniences for Thrawn but he in fact claimed them as sequential victories in his goal. 

The Rebels had destroyed their base of operations on Ryloth. Thrawn had allowed them to run. The Rebels had sent a scout droid back as a bomb, destroying a capital ship. Thrawn had made a quiet note on his map. The Rebels had resisted the attack on their Atollon base, destroying two Interdictors before they'd fled, most of their Command still alive and uncaptured. Thrawn had not faced his superiors whining about the strange creature appearing in the sky throwing lightning, but had instead demonstrated how thoroughly he'd destroyed most of their fleet. Every setback was a step forward, and Pryce could not budge him.

He could not be bought, nor roused to anger, nor made to admit failure. This was intolerable.

Taking the lesson, delayed as it was, she observed him. As the Rebels made their moves, as he countered, she watched Thrawn's interest focus in with laserlike intensity. She'd believed he was waging his calculating war against the nameless, pitiful hordes of their enemies, watching them as dispassionately as he would a swarm of insects to be swatted, viewing them as nothing more than interesting specimens he could put to the pin. Instead, his eyes had been drawn again and again to one fluttering, darting, biting pest, admiring how she flew.

Earlier today Pryce herself had captured that bug.

 _"He's obsessed with a Twi'lek,"_ said the message. Pryce refrained from sharing more. Information was power. Let Tarkin wonder what else she knew, both about Thrawn and about Tarkin's own tastes. Let him muse their inhuman Grand Admiral had a wandering eye for the lithe flesh of some dancer. Pryce would enact her own plans.

Missive sent, piece played, she summoned her attaché. "Bring Syndulla to me."

"Ma'am, Grand Admiral Thrawn has already had her brought to his office."

Pryce frowned, inwardly cursing her own pause to savor the knowledge she'd held over the rest. She had hesitated, and now she could not stick the pin herself into this nuisance and rid the Empire of her.

"Then bring her when he's finished, or what's left of her."

* * *

Hera's vision refused to focus for a long time. She'd awakened with her wrists in binders before, and she knew the ice-pricks of her shoulders trying to restore circulation in an awkward position. She lay half-sprawled on a metal chair with her arms behind her. She'd been captured. Pryce. Lothal. The mission.

Chopper had gotten away, and Mart with him. Commander Sato had given his life to ensure Ezra's freedom, saving him and the rest of them, and at last, Hera had repaid that debt. She hoped she wouldn't have the chance to tell Sato in person in the next few minutes, but hope wasn't something she could afford to have much of right now.

The seated figure in front of her snapped into view, and her hopes dimmed further. She could play for more time while pretending to stay woozy. Stun blasts did a number on the nervous system, especially non-humans. Blasters were designed with human targets in mind and modified only at need to account for other body types. Poor Zeb was lucky when he only lost his lunch after waking up from a stun.

"Good morning, Captain," Thrawn said, and she knew he was aware of how awake she was. Acting would buy her nothing.

"It's 'General' now."

"Yes, a rank which I believe your Rebellion traditionally uses to designate the fool who volunteered to lead the suicide mission, with the belief that should the fool return alive, the promotion was worthy."

She finished, "And the related belief that if the fool gets killed along the way, it makes a nice epitaph. I'm familiar."

"You should know, we've obliterated your remaining little cell of Rebels on Lothal. The clean-up crew arrived back on the ship while you were unconscious."

Hera froze, keeping the horrified emotion off her face, watching his red eyes. Dead. Her team she'd pushed and poked and stitched together into a ragdoll semblance of a family was gone, wiped out between the moment she'd been knocked out to the opening of her eyes here. And Thrawn was watching her face intently.

This was another game. He was testing her reactions. Lying to her. Relief flooded her, filling her with a mixture of affection and rage against him for playing her for his own amusement.

With as calm a voice as she could manage, she said, "I'm surprised you got Chopper, too. I always figured he'd go out taking half a planet with him because someone irritated him too much one day."

"Shall I tell you how they each died?"

Hera focused on her wrists. Thrawn did not go into his imagined litany of destruction, instead continuing to view her as she played with the give. With enough time and leverage, she might be able to dislocate her shoulders enough to bring her hands in front of herself. She'd be no closer to picking the lock on her cuff but hands in front of her could be used as a sledge.

Another thought occurred to her. Thrawn might be enjoying his victory now but the time would come when he would order in the torture droid to extract information from her. Prisoners were always retied with their arms spread for the droids to have better surface area. Her hands would be free for an instant.

"Fascinating."

Thrawn stood, walking around the breadth of his desk to stand next to her. Hera had to strain her neck to look up at him, and she didn't care to. She kept her head low, and flickered her gaze around the room, looking for any weapons she could use. Her family's kalikori stood on a low plinth, exhibited like some curiosity rather than a deeply personal heirloom. He was using it as a weapon against her now. See how pointless you are. See how little the Empire cares for your rituals, your family's past and future. Your history is quaint, silly, and forgettable, turned into a souvenir.

She finally turned her head to face him. "Are you still here?"

"I've told you that your crew is dead. You make jokes about your droid. Don't you care?" There was an undercurrent to his question, almost excitement.

She could spin this out longer, but her arms hurt, and she was tired. "We both know you're lying. My team escaped and you don't know where they're hiding. If you'd actually killed any of them, you'd have presented me with a trophy." She gestured, as much as she could with a shoulder. "You love your trophies. They make you feel smarter than the rest of the Imperials around you."

"Hardly a feat. Algae grown for ration bars are more intelligent than many of my colleagues."

Hera stifled her unexpected laugh. "That should be my line."

"You have your own issues, I'm sure." He walked away from her, making it easier for Hera to look at him. "The galaxy under the Empire is difficult for those like you and I. The Emperor favors humans, and to be frank, even the alien-friendly humans view us as slight inferiors. They look at you, and they see a lovely face, and as much as their ideals tell them to treat you as an equal, they resist referring to you as a dancing girl."

"Joke's on them. I've got two left feet."

"I know how it feels to be disregarded. Not in the same way, of course, but similar. No one would have believed a Twi'lek woman was leading a successful cell for the Rebellion, so you installed a pliable figurehead to give your orders until you could prove your worth. Even now, after all your work, half of Imperial Command believes your strategic victories, small as they have been, were all the doing of either your Jedi or your father." She'd heard that rumor, and far worse.

"Does it matter who gets the credit as long as your Empire crumbles?"

"You tell me. I'm also regarded with suspicion. Do you know where I'm from?"

"The planet of the blue sleemos?"

His lips formed a thin smile. "No matter. My point is that I understand you, and over the time we've known each other, I have realized that among those I've encountered in this part of the galaxy, you may come closest to understanding me."

His eyes fixed on her. Hera's gorge rose slightly, and she swallowed it away. "You're not my type."

"Pity. We would have made a partnership that could have rivaled anyone in the Empire."

His steps took him behind her. Hera kept herself from tensing. She had to anticipate his moves, use them against him the way the two of them had been working against one another for months.

With a soft 'click' her hands were released. The binders fell away into his grasp. "You may relax your arms. Do not even consider going for some kind of weapon. This room is guarded. You would be dead before you found one." Thrawn returned to face her, binder cuffs placed behind him on the desk.

Hera rubbed her hands and arms. The pain slowly diminished as the blood worked through her veins. She didn't ask him why, or what he wanted. Thrawn liked to talk. Let him blather on in his own time.

"Not even a thank you?" he asked after a long moment.

"You locked me up. Letting me go is basic decency."

"I'm not letting you go. I have a proposition for you."

She refused to look at him. "We just went over that. It's nothing personal. I prefer to shoot Imperials rather than date them."

"You misunderstand. What I desire from you is your brain. The rest of you is superfluous, and if you prefer, I can remove one from the other."

The threat was mild. Hera folded her arms. Thrawn wasn't ready to kill her right now, and there were no signs of an interrogator droid coming into the room. That didn't mean she was safe, only that she would likely spend the next several minutes still breathing. After that, there were too many variables to consider. She read much the same calculation on his face.

She hated Thrawn for the things he'd done and the people he'd killed, but she'd hated Alexsandr Kallus before, as well. "You know, the Rebellion could use someone like you. You and I working together could take down the Empire."

"I could make you the same offer with the Empire. With you by my side, the Rebellion would be swept away in a day, restoring the galaxy to peace."

Hera carefully took note of his face, his voice, and the movement of his eyes. She wouldn't have believed it, and part of her doubted. This must be some act, some new game. Surely of all people, Thrawn wouldn't....

"You hate the Empire, too." She intended a flat statement but couldn't hold back the half question at the end.

"I serve the Emperor."

"But only because that furthers your own plans." She read the quiet worry on his face, and she remembered his previous statement that they were being watched. If he hadn't been lying, she'd just sentenced him to a painful death.

No guards came.

Thrawn's voice dropped. "My home is in danger. All worlds are in danger. The Emperor does not see or care. I have come to seek out the best weapons I can find."

Hera chuckled. "Then you've been playing cat-and-rat-chase with the wrong Rebel all this time. Sabine's the weaponry genius. Of course, you know if you lay a hand on her, I'll break it off and shove it into your ear."

"Of course." He bent closer. "However, again you misunderstand me. I have collected weaponry. What I need for my fight is a strategic mind as well-equipped as my own, which can think nearly as well as I do but which doesn't think the same as I do."

Hera let the 'nearly' pass. "You're collecting people."

"A rare few. Intelligent. Adaptable. Ready to fight not just for the safety and freedom of their own worlds, but of all worlds. I can send the plans for the TIE Defender to my world, and they can produce them, but I must send them minds or our tactics will fail."

Hera's tactics had failed. She'd led enough ships for two full squadrons against the blockade, and they'd all been shot out of the sky. They hadn't saved Lothal, hadn't destroyed the factory. "You've proven your strategies were better than mine." The words were bitter to say.

"No, I proved that even against overwhelming odds, you still found the means to survive, evading my assassin and freeing your friends. I learned from my defeats, and I expect you have learned from this one." He leaned so close to her that she could feel his breath. "Think of what we could learn as we traveled back to my homeworld together."

She turned to face him. "You'd go?"

"I have what I need from my experience with the Empire. You are the final piece I wish to collect before my departure. I can tell the Emperor I am needed in the outer reaches of wild space, and I can arrange to be sent."

No more Thrawn anticipating every move the Rebellion intended to make. No more genius mastermind choking Lothal. They'd be back to the dull-witted Imperials and petty commanders who cared for personal glory. Hera would take their greatest military enemy off the game board, and the Rebellion might have a chance for permanent victory.

"If I say no and turn you in instead?"

"Then we test the odds between the average life expectancy of an irksome Imperial prisoner versus the ingenuity of your friends. I estimate heavy casualties on both sides. I don't suffer from emotional attachments to my underlings."

"And if I say yes, you'll come with me, and stay until everything is settled on your home planet?"

"It would be my greatest honor." For this once, Hera heard no trace of Thrawn's usual detached sarcasm or irony. If this was a trick or deception, it was a very well-acted one.

The journey to Thrawn's home could take weeks, and Hera would have all that time to talk him into supporting the Rebellion instead. She wondered if he'd placed her kalikori where she could see it for this reason. Her family was alive. He offered her a future where they lived in freedom.

"When do we leave?"

* * *

Pryce wasn't waiting outside Thrawn's office like some nosy busybody. Nevertheless, he seemed unsurprised to see her, and paused as she fell into step beside him.

She said, "You interrogated my prisoner."

"General Syndulla is the Empire's prisoner, not yours."

"General?"

"Petty, meaningless titles often proliferate among the small-minded, Governor."

"I'm sure, Grand Admiral." She couldn't tell if he was annoyed with her or impressed. "I'll assume she didn't surrender any useful information."

"I acquired what I needed from her." He sounded far too satisfied.

Pryce kept her eyes straight ahead. Disgusting. The Emperor should know by now the habits of non-humans were often depraved.

"I have also received word that my presence is needed elsewhere. I'll be taking the Chimaera from the blockade within the hour, leaving Lothal in your redoubtable hands."

"Is that wise?"

"Governor, we have prevented the Rebel attack from succeeding, wiped out their new ships, and captured their leader. Do you need more from me?" He stopped at a lift and called it to their deck.

"No." She hid her displeasure. "I'm sure we'll be fine without your oversight."

Thrawn stepped into the lift. "Yes, Governor. I have told General Syndulla I fully expect you will handle the situation with the Empire's usual competency." The door shut.

end


End file.
